TLDR Tech / Marketing
Search Console's Average Position, Explained
Average position in GSC is an aggregated metric that often misleads and offers little actionable insight, so it is usually best ignored. An overall average position of 25 means a site ranks around page 3, since Google shows about 10 organic results per page. Query-level average position is more useful because it reflects how a specific URL ranks across users, such as averaging 1.5 if it appears in position 1 for one search and 2 for another. Special elements like image packs and AI Overviews count as positions, and appearing in them can raise a URL to position 1 even if its organic ranking is lower. Reported positions can vary due to personalization, device differences, and limited visibility of features like “People also ask,” which makes exact rankings harder to verify.
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